We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Jenny Lawson is Broken (in the Best Possible Way)

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

1. Content warning: Discussion of suicide. 2. Jenny puts words to her experience of ADD – "being a kitten on cocaine" – and her anxiety – seeing "rainbow fire.”  3. How Jenny felt guilty for years about a way her mental illness impacted her mothering – only to later learn it was her child’s favorite memory. 4. The moment she decided to be honest about her struggles – and how sharing our awkwardness can save the world and cure our loneliness. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255 About Jenny: Jenny Lawson is an award-winning humorist known for her great candor in sharing her struggle with mental illness. She's written four NYT bestsellers, including Let's Pretend This Never Happened (a mostly true memoir), Furiously Happy (A funny book about terrible things), You Are Here (An owner's manual for dangerous minds) and Broken (in the best possible way), which recently won the Goodreads Choice award for Best Humor of 2021. One of those books is a coloring book but she insists it still counts. She lives in Texas with her husband and child and would like to be your friend unless you're a real asshole. TW: @TheBloggess IG: @thebloggess To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at 12.99 per month. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Hi, everybody. Hi.

How you doing, babe? I'm very excited. And how are you, sis? I'm very excited. Oh, good. I talked to our guests today. Me too. As you might know, it's mental health awareness month.

There was a well known as all year in our world. How funny is it? But we're going to take one month to talk about our mental health. Like it's so fascinating. I think it shows how we haven't yet figured out that mental health is for everyone with a mental. Right?

With a mind. Yes, I know. You know, it's a mind. But there are some people whose minds are so special and so different that they can serve as guides for all who have mental. And our guest today is one of those guides. And she has been a guide for me forever. I have been reading Jenny Lawson's, well, first on her blog, like decades ago, the blog as is how I found her. I think her tagline on the on her website is like mother Teresa, but better.

That's how I first fell in love with her with just that line. I've always loved Jenny, as she's a hero of a lot of folks, and it's for many reasons one, because she's unbelievably hilarious and honest, but also because there's so many people who talk about mental health in like our cultural way of talking about it, which is like, just from an expert view,

or from like a before and after story, like mental health extreme home makeover. Like they used to be a mess and now they're better before and exactly. And it never feels true to me because that's never been true for me. Ever. So I don't understand how that I always feel like people are lying when they're done with mental health illness or something. Like, that's not the way it works. At least it's just not the way it works for you and Jenny. Okay, I feel like for anyone, but I'm sure there's some people who are fixed.

I'm just trying to say that there might be different people out there also. Yes, but great for them. Happy for them. Well, and also speaks to like maybe that is true of those people's experiences, but it's not socially acceptable to talk about it from the thick. That's right. It's only like, oh, I too used to be an alcoholic. I too used to whatever, but when you say like currently now, write this moment, live,

broadcasting live to you is a very different beast. It's revolutionary. Yes. In a world that just celebrates victory stories. And it's true in a way that makes people like me and millions of people feel really seen and okay and belonging. So she talks about mental illness from it, not just about it. She just shows

up in the middle and is one of us. Let's just get her here. Can you just, we're obviously our guest is Jenny Lawson. Yeah, Jenny Lawson. Well, after that intro, we couldn't get Jenny. She's hide and manned, but we have this other girl who used to know Jenny. Who's better now? Hi, Jenny. Who's better now? Hello, oh my gosh. So glad to be here and also very nervous.

And normally can't say that when I'm doing podcasts, because I'm like, I'm going to be very professional. But this feels like a very safe place and that I can just be honest about it. And so, so I'm both very excited and also slightly terrified that I am going to disappoint and dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome and fighting that off. Same Jenny. Right? Same to all of it. Yes. Welcome. We welcome you with your open arms.

And also, I just want to say, there's no possible way you could ever disappoint. We have this hour together, and I'm so thrilled to have this hour together. And if we just stood here and stared at each other, I would be so happy. I'm just grateful to finally get to see you in your face in real life. Can you read Jenny's bio?

Jenny Lawson is an award-winning writer and humorist known for her piercing candor in sharing her struggle with mental illness. She's written four, count that folks, four New York Times best sellers, including let's pretend this never happened. including let's pretend this never happened. A mostly true memoir, furiously happy, a funny book about terrible things and broken in the best possible way, which recently won the Goodreads Choice Award for the best humor of 2021.

She's the owner of Know Where Bookshop an indie bookstore in San Antonio, Jenny lives in Texas with her husband and child and would like to be your friend unless you're a real asshole. Nobody be an asshole, sister Abby. I'm trying to be Jenny's friend. See how she led with me, Jenny? She added Abby to be sweet, but mostly it was for me. Well, I mean, I don't think that I of any of the three of us have assholeries. You're the least asshole. That's right.

I'm the pie chart. You're a sliver. Need to talk to myself. That's exactly what I was trying to get out. I think it depends on what you're using your assholery for because it can be a fantastic tool for the right thing. Jenny, talk to us about, first of all, it's mental health awareness month and the next month is Pride Month.

So this is like really my time to shine, Jenny. I'm just really, this is like game month for us. Yes. Can you tell us in Broken, which I freak, I love all of your books so much. Broken's just the most recent one I've read and I've read it twice and I read it once for my own little heart and mental

and then for again, for the interview. Talk to us about your first panic attack that you remember when you were little. Oh goodness. Anxiety has always been my constant companion. So I'm not sure if I could even break it down to the first. It's really more that there's a lot of stuff that in retrospect, as I got older, I looked at and said, you know what, the average kid does not take out all of their toys out of the toy box and shut themselves in like it's a tiny coffin or a sensory deprivation chamber. The average kid doesn't, you know, throw up every day when because they're

going to have to go to school and the average kid doesn't have problems communicating with people. And so for me, it was always just my constant. I was just weird. I think now it's easier to be weird, but this was back in the 70s, 80s, when you couldn't find your other weirdes, and I'm living out in rural Texas, and it, yeah, it was rough. It took a long time before I saw, that's really kind of how I discovered writing,

was because I couldn't communicate in any other way. And so not only because I was so afraid of talking, but also when I would talk, I would get really panicky. So I would either not talk at all, and I was just the very quiet person sitting in the corner, or as soon as I started to talk, I could not stop, and I would ramble, and I would go off on these ridiculous, you know, tangents and now I embrace it. Now I'm like, I'm okay with a ridiculous tangents, but at the time, it was a different era, you know,

and people were like, oh, there's something real wrong with her. But finding writing gave me the ability to slow down time and sort of reprocess it and say, okay, here's what I want you to know. And here's who I am. And it was through that that I was able to communicate. That tracks. So your book is called Broken, the most recent one. And it's so interesting because I always had a complicated relationship with that word. My friend Brandy Carlisle named her book Broken Horses and I was like,

no, you cannot name it Broken Horses. Like, you're not broke. We had a whole thing. I was like, if you name it Broken Horses, no one will read it. And then she did and then it became this huge New York Times bus seller. So that was fine. As did Jenny's. Yeah, yeah, as a Jenny's. So I'm not getting asked for advice about titles anymore. But can you tell me your relationship to the word broken and you're embracing of that word? So for me, I've always felt a little bit just not right. I have clinical depression that's treatment resistant and I have anxiety. And I have impulse control disorder, and I have chica telemania.

I collect disorders like other people collect holly hobby. And I just was like, there's something really wrong with me because I don't know anybody else like this. The more that I explored it, the more that I realized that the way in which I was broken, and I used that word in a way like a sort of reclaiming it. Broken as in shattered in a slightly different way, I think that, I mean, it is a horrible struggle to deal with mental illness, but I think that for a lot of people,

it creates a very deep well of compassion because you know how hard it is, and also because, you know, everybody's depression presents in a different way, which was something that, that, that for me, I always have to continue to remind myself, because some people will be like, oh, I'm really depressed, and so I was crying all day, and I'm like, my depression presents as an extremely uncomfortable numbness. My face feels like it doesn't connect to me, I have absolutely no energy. I just basically have to cling to the couch and be like, keep breathing, your depression is lying to you, your depression is telling you some terrible things right now

and none of them are true. And that is awful, inter-er-able, but it also makes me who I am. And that's not to say that if somebody said, like, here, take this pill, you can get fixed forever. I wouldn't be like, yes, please let me have it. I'm not like, oh, yes, I love December. It's great.

But one of my doctors said, and it was one of the nicest things that anyone has ever said to me, it's always stuck with me. He was like, you don't let your pain go to waste. And I think that's every single time when I'm struggling and everybody has their own struggle. With whatever it is, I just think if we all could just

learn from that. Because it's so easy to turn brittle or angry, but to turn it and make it into positive forward motion of how could you help others, how could you have compassion for others? How could you have compassion for yourself? Because, I mean, honestly, I'm really good at forgiving people for the things that they do to me.

I, it is almost impossible for me to forgive myself or, you know, and I'm like, okay, well, I don't go to the PTA meetings because I can't handle it and I don't go to, you know, so many of my kids, things that I really want to be a part of and I'm like, I just, I can basically cannot make myself do it. I have to sort of pick and choose and it was really hard for a long time to, to deal with the fact of the disappointment that I felt on myself as a mom, especially when they were young. I didn't have any ability to tell them that there was something wrong, except I would just feel like, I just don't feel very good. Whenever things would get really bad, our thing was we would watch Dr. Hoo. And I, because I was like, I can just sit on the couch,

and it's one of the TV shows that doesn't like jar me for some reason. And so we would spend all this time, and I would be thinking, all of these other mothers are out there, they're cooking dinner for their kids, I'm not, they're washing their clothes, they're doing all this stuff.

I'm just laying here. I'm literally doing nothing. Just trying to breathe to get through this week. And when Hailey was older, I was able to explain it to them and apologize. And they were like, first of all, I didn't really realize that that was what you were going through. And I'm so sorry. But also, those were the best memories for me.

Like, do you not understand? Like, you sat with me on the couch. Everybody else's mom was like, I don't have time for you. I gotta go do it. I gotta, but you were like, oh no, this is just me and you time. We're gonna spend four hours just sitting here snuggling and watching Dr. here. four hours just sitting here snuggling and watching Dr. here.

Okay. So beautiful. God, the things we think are we should feel guilty about are the moments our kids are like there she is. She's with us. She's letting me watch four hours of TV. I love my mama. I love my mama. I'm Jonathan M. Hevar.

I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things. But I grew up working class. My parents were immigrants with factory jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I wanna talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food.

And I was like, girl, we're not doing that anymore. You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing, and strangely intimate things about what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread. And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy? You're hiding the tags from yourself.

Classy. A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things that's so important to me is it's not just, oh, we're broken, busted up. So there are these silver linings. It's like there's this chapter in your book called Rainbow Fire about like the actual gifts of these ways of being. Not just the sour grapes, not just silver linings, but like there's this moment where you're on tour for the book. And so Jenny writes these books. She writes them, I think, from much of her writing comes, she makes sure she's in the

place, she's in the depression, she's in the anxiety. That's why we can feel it's so real and so connected. Then she has to go on tour. Yeah, I mean, what do you do? It's sick joke. Yeah, okay, so you have this one moment where you're on tour, You're in a hotel room. You're supposed to go out and Speak to all of these people about your book and you get extremely anxious and you can't go out and you can't go out into the world And you are stuck in this hotel room and you're too anxious to go explore which for me is such a metaphor of anxiety. It's like What always literally happens and then you're, oh, I'm missing my life.

And all of those people are out there, out the window, doing the things humans are supposed to do. But I can't experience life because of this anxiety. And I'm wasting my life. And then can you tell everybody what happens next when you're looking out the window? Yeah, I'm looking out the window and you can see like time square up here.

And you can see like all of these here and you can see like all just all of these things that I'd always heard about on, like you know, you read a badam and you hear about them and then you actually see them in real life and you're like, oh my God, that's a real place and it really exists. It's not just like a fairy tale kind of thing. I kept going back and forth from my window to my door

and every time I would get stuck and I would be like, I cannot do it. I cannot leave this hotel room. I cannot make myself leave here. My anxiety is too strong and I just felt like such a failure and I sat down next to the window and just opened it up and I was like, at least I can feel like I'm kind of in New York.

You know, I can like hear the noise and I look down and there's this big fountain and it's, I don't know what it's called, but it looks like a whole bunch of d big fountain and it's, I don't know what it's called, but it looks like a whole bunch of dandelions and it's like fountains on fountains and it's so pretty. And I look down and I notice that there is this rainbow fire coming up off of this fountain and I am trying to figure out what it is. And I realize that it's a prism effect and I'm looking at it and I'm like to figure out what it is. And I realized that it's, you know, a

prison effect. And I am looking at it and I'm like, this is, I've never seen anything so beautiful. And everybody is walking past it as if they couldn't care at all. And I just thought, I get, and maybe they're just so used to it, you know, you get used to beauty, you don't see it anymore. And then I realized that that wasn't what it was at all. It was because I was so high up in my building that I was the only one that could see the light hit it in that certain way. And that no one else was seeing this amazing, fantastic thing that was greater than anything that I would have seen out there.

And that that sometimes life creates a path for you. And it ends up that it's the right path. And I just, I was so grateful that I was there in that moment. You said I was reminded that there are amazing things I would never see with normal eyes and other paths. I cried again, but this time out of a small thankfulness that my brokenness set me in the place where I am. Beautiful, terrible, unseen by most. You have so many of the so-called brokennesses and you just mentioned a few of them. You also and you just mentioned a few of them. You also have ADD and severe autoimmune diseases.

One of the reasons so many people hold to your words like a lifeline is that you're able to put words to experiences that so many have but are lonely and severely isolated inside of because they don't have a bridge of words to be seen and understood by other people. And you put words to these internal realities that are so absurdly accurate and honest and brilliant and often hilarious that you are bringing light to the experience that so many have and I believe it's saving lives that you are giving people a bridge to walk over with your words. You describe your ADD self as a kitten on cocaine. Yeah.

Please say more. Yeah. What is it? What is it like to live? Yes. With ADD. It is utterly exhausting. It's very much like working on LSD,

where you just think like, oh, I think I'm doing this. And then later you look and you're like, well, I was not doing that at all. I'm on a very regular basis. Like I would say like on a typical day like today, and this has happened, I can't even count how many times this has happened.

Today I have this hyper fixation on, I tend to eat the same thing over and over again. So my hyper fixation lunch, which I've had pretty much every day for maybe three years is a Pimenta cheese sandwich on toasted bread. And like I'm keeping Pimenta big Pimenta cheese is in business just because of me. I was pretty good at it.

And so I went to put toast in the toaster and there was already toast in the toaster. And I was like, did I, I must have done this already. And but then I looked at it and I was already toast in the toaster. And I was like, did I, I must have done this already? And, but then I looked at it and I was like, well, that's really cold and I'm like, oh, it's stale. And I'm like, oh, I did this yesterday. I did it yesterday and forgot to eat it. Just literally was like, yeah, I guess I must have eaten.

My biggest problem is that I have, a lot of problems remembering to get my medication filled because I have ADD, which is impossible. And then I'll, because I have AD and I'm just, just kind of, I get things kind of confused. I'm like, did I take the pill? Did I not take the pill? And then I'll be like, wait, did I take my vitamin pill? Am I O-O-D on fine events? And I can't, I have no idea. I need to find a better. I need one of those, I think there's

some sort of machine that says, you had too many. And so instead, I ended up not taking enough because I'm like, I don't know, maybe you already had one. I'm not going to chance it. Yeah, it's really hard. I've had to find a whole lot of tools and the really great thing about with with mental illness, with depression, with anxiety with is that there are so many people now who are willing to talk about it. They're willing to say like, this is where it works for me,

this is what works for me. And you can kind of pick and choose. And I always think like, I have my toolbox and I can be like, okay, this works for me. This thing that everybody was like, totally works. This thing does not work for me. And so when somebody's like, you should try yoga, like, fuck you. You like, I agree. Right, it works for everybody else.

But no, I don't want to sweat and be uncomfortable. And I'm going to strain something. And also, I'm in a fart so many public Thank you Right That should be good for my anxiety I think about farting in front of 30 people from the PTA the entire time and you're in these positions and nobody else farts

I've been to three yoga classes No, whenever farts. And the whole time I'm like, how? There's nothing, nothing. Anyway, it's insane. But I have all these tools. And so, like, for me, when that has been really helpful is pink noise, which is, it's kind of like, you know, they have like different kinds of like gray

noise and brown noise and whatever. Pink noise, it sounds like kind of like, you know, they have like different kinds of like gray noise and brown noise and what a pink noise. It sounds like kind of the ocean. But there's something about that particular tone that helps block out. So like when I have a DD, I hear, like I hear all the light bulbs in the house and I hear, I mean, everything is very loud all the time. So I can't concentrate on anything else. It's like it's like if everything in your house turned up the volume to 90 and people are talking to you normally and you're going,

do you not hear what's going on? We're in the middle of an earthquake and they're like, no, it's really not. I'm like, do you hear the lights? And they're like, no. But if you talk to people with ADD, most of them will say, oh yeah, oh my God,, the lights in your so loud, especially like fluorescent lights. Awful.

But pink noise drowns it out. And the really helpful thing is when I'm writing because I have a really hard time like sitting down and getting things done. There's a YouTube compilation of just like free whatever pink noise. And I think it's like 20 minutes long. And so when I turn it on, I can write. And as soon as I start to get distracted, I know that it's turned off. And I can go to, I can say to myself, I just worked for 20 minutes. Even if I only got one sentence done,

even if I'm in a deleted, it still gives me a chance to say, I completed 20 minutes. I think I can do another 20. Let's try it one more time. That's awesome. Awesome. As someone who deals with ADD,

does it annoy you or not when people are like, I'm so ADD, like on all their memes and graphics, because they like forgot one thing. Is that an annoyance and a hurtful thing for you? I understand why and a hurtful thing for you? I understand why it's hurtful for other people. For me, no, it doesn't. For me, it feels like it feels kind of compassionate in some way

because they're like, oh, this really sucks that I was forgetful or I was this, you know, like that. And it's not the same. And of course, you shouldn't make fun of it and everything. But at the same time, I mean, I call myself crazy all the time. And there are some people who are like, you can't call yourself crazy. And I'm like, you know what, I get to take that word back. I'm like, Justin Timberlake was sexy.

I'm taking crazy back. And I'm like, I embrace it. And I'm okay with it. One of the really nice things that has come from writing about mental illness is the fact that, this is, I have to tell the story backwards to get to the thing. When I first wrote about it, I was very afraid to talk about it,

but what I would do is I would write these funny posts and I would keep them so that when I was having a week, when I couldn't do anything at all, I could publish them then. And I was like, oh, this is good. This is covering and this is. But what happened was, in fact, it made it so much more painful because of the cognitive dissonance of people going like, you're so funny. Oh my gosh. And instead, I'm like, I cannot shower. I cannot stand up. Like I hate myself. And so I was like, I'm just going to have to write about it. And when I did, my father, he just was like, this, I don't think this is a good idea. This could affect you. I just know, and, but I did anyway. And what happened was instead of people running away, thousands of people said, you need me too. I also feel alone.

I also feel sometimes like the world would be better off without me. I also listen to those lies that depression tells and I have to remind myself that those are lies and that when I come out, I'll go, oh, that was not real. And so what happened was I got all of these responses from people later on who were actively in the process

of planning their suicide and decided to not and to get help, not because of what I wrote, but because they saw thousands of anonymous strangers say, me too, me too. I also feel like this. And they thought, how could they possibly feel like the world would be better off without them? And then they thought, well, if I feel that for that stranger, maybe I could give myself

that same benefit of the doubt. And what is so amazing is that now, there are all of these people who reached out and they got help and they're still alive today and their mothers and fathers and children and parents and there. And they were saved by anonymous strangers who have no idea that they saved lives. Like you don't know the ripples that you put out there. And just in saying, I also feel like that, that they

saved lives. And after that, my dad was like, I'm really proud of you and I'm going to start talking about my mental illness too. And before, you know, he really, I mean to the point where like when I first started to see a psychiatrist when I was like, this is really bad. My mom just kind of sat me down and said, you know, this, this runs in your family. You know that your dad has some really difficult issues and your aunts and your grandparents. And I was like, no, why did no one told me? But that's how it was. It was only recently that I found out that my, I think she was my great-great-grandmother,

my grandmother's grandmother. I was doing some genealogy stuff and I found that she died in the mental institution in our town and I was like, that's so strange because I would have thought that I would have heard something about that and my mom was like, I didn't know anything about that and my grandmother was like, I didn't know anything about that because it was hidden. It was completely hidden. And I found her death certificate. And it was death of related to psychosis. And I was like, well, psychosis doesn't kill you. And so I did some research on that hospital.

And what they did at the time was insulin therapy, where they put you into a diabetic coma. And they did this thing where they put you into a diabetic coma and they did this thing where they put you in freezing cold water hydrotherapy. They did just these really barbaric treatments that a ton of people died from because they had heart attacks and that's what happened with her. So every time that I start to think, it's hard to open up, it's hard to open yourself up and know that even though 99.9% of the people

are gonna say, hey, I'm with you or someone I love also has depression or I don't get it, but at least you're funny about it or that there's still gonna be that 0.1% who's like, oh, I knew you were crazy. They should take your kid away. They should, you know, lock you up. I just look at how far we've come and how easy it could be to fall back.

I mean, we can see that now when stuff that's going on the Supreme Court where I'm like, oh, this was a done deal. I didn't have to think about this for the rest of my life and almost I'm like, oh, this is back. What's that's right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jenny, I feel like it's important to talk about suicide. And it's scary to talk about it because people are convinced that it's talking about it as contagious. And like, if you talk about it,

that means other people will think of it or something. And maybe they wouldn't have thought of it before. And I think that comes from a good place too, right? Everybody's just trying to avoid it. But what has always been surprising to me, and I have no idea if this is just because of my mental health issues, is that people seem so shocked.

I can't even imagine, is usually the refrain, right? Like I can't even imagine is usually the refrain, right? Like I can't even imagine. And that is always very, feels like othering to me because I'm always like really? Like you can't, you can't, you've never thought about that. So I don't even know exactly what I'm trying to say, but what I think what I'm trying to say is I feel like talking about it, even admitting, yes, I too have had those feelings. I, too have considered suicide.

I have had beginning thoughts or middle thoughts. I don't think that that propagates suicide. I have had beginning thoughts or middle thoughts or I don't think that that propagates suicide. I think that it what you just said is so important. Talking about it makes people think, oh, maybe it's not, I'm not alone in it. And that makes you less depressed, which makes you less likely to commit suicide. Right? Like- Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, there are some, there are, you know, some issues. So like, for instance, I have suicidal ideation, which means that I think about suicide a lot, even though it's not necessarily something where I'm like, oh, let's do it.

It's just an impulsive thought that I have. And for a long time, it really bothered me because I would think that and I would get so upset about it. And then I would get upset about being upset and it would actually make it much worse. And instead, what I've learned is the best thing to do is just to like recognize that emotion and that thought and go like, okay, I see you. That's a little crazy. Put it in a bubble. Push it off. And then if it comes comes back you just continue to do that. The other thing is that for a lot of people if you're in a dark place or if you have suicidal ideation one of the things that you have to learn and it's a really hard process but you have to learn

how to take care of yourself and sometimes that does mean removing yourself from that sort of set. There are certain types of triggers of there's like some movies and I'm like, oh, I want to see this movie so bad and I'll do like a little search and it'll be like, oh, this type of this happens and I'm like, I can't, I can't because I know it'll make those thoughts and I know one have to deal with it. So it does kind that you're having to carry your brain around in a little bag and go like, I know you wanna look at this thing. This really dark thing looks exciting to you

because your brain's there, but I absolutely think that talking about suicide is, and the thoughts of it are so important because I think when it happens, it can be so terrifying that you can automatically think, well, I guess that choice was maybe the right choice. Instead of having somebody say, oh, it's okay to have that thought.

That thought doesn't mean that you're gonna act on it. It just means that you need to talk to somebody. You just need to make sure that you're safe. You need to, you know, talk to a therapist, talk to a friend. I've called the crisis hotline so many times. And it's wonderful. It's so helpful. Even sometimes I'll get somebody and I'm like, nope.

OK, I'll talk to you later. And I'll call back and go, I'll be like, can I talk to somebody else? Because sometimes you get people who want to fix you. And I'm like, I don't really want somebody to fix. I just want somebody to say, that sucks. I'm so sorry. You're doing really good.

You're going to get through this. And that's what I continue to remind myself. But yeah, you always see people who are like, I can't believe that this person had everything going for them. And when your brain is not working properly, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah, and we don't do this to anything else. We don't go like, oh, she lost her battle to cancer.

She must be so weak, you know. And I think suicide is terrible and horrible. And if you were in any way thinking about it at all, I can tell you, you need to reach out, you need to get help because there are so many people who would miss you. I mean, you do not know the ripples that you would make. But I also will say for a lot of people who have left us, I feel really badly that for so many of them, that's all people think about is their last moment. When I'm like, they had such an amazing, wonderful life and we should celebrate that. And I think that also can be really helpful for people who have suicidal ideation because when somebody big dies by suicide, we all feel like, oh my god, I could be next. I could be next.

And you feel like, oh, okay, well, they failed. And if you can retrain your brain to be like, actually, they succeeded in saving their life over and over and over again. Like Robin Williams had this like long and amazing life filled with comedy and humor and paythos and severe ups and downs and flew and he had such an amazing life. And I think it's really sad when people just go like, oh, his life was a tragedy because it ended in this way. Because everybody's life is an amazing chance to accelerate, to celebrate magic and appreciate it and feel it. And if you right now are feeling depressed and numb and feeling like you're never going to feel that again, I mean, you just have to trust that you will come out. And every single

time I'm in a depression, I just came out of one. And when I was in it, I had to go back and read my own stuff to be like, okay, the past Jenny said, I'll come out again. And past Jenny must know. It doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like it's possible. And then it does. And you can breathe again. And light works again. And you can, you can just be a normal person, which is so fantastic. But also a little exhausting because you come out and you're two weeks behind on everything. And there's always people who are like, well, because you're lazy, you know, if you exercise more.

You know, if you're a yoga people, if you pray to the right way, if you found the right God, if you, you know, there's always, it's probably your glucose. No, it's your gluten. Yeah. You know what? It's just my brain. It's generations of people would just have weird brains. Coming out of it is so interesting though.

I saw something that made me feel so seen. I'm sure it was in a meme because that's the way my brain works. But it said something like coming out of depression is when you do your worldwide apology tour. And I feel like that's it. It's just like you're in it. And then you spend the next month apologizing for every freaking thing you didn't do, didn't show up for the things you said, the things you didn't say, it's another month. Oh my god. That is absolutely 100%. And then you have this like doubt in yourself of you know I didn't do these things that like the average normal person can do. I mean it really is like waking up and you have the

worst flu ever and you don't know how long it's gonna last. And everybody's like well you can push through the flu but then they have the flu and they're like oh I can't push through this I literally can't get out of bed. It's like that's what is, except it's the flu that's in your brain. But guess what? Your brain controls everything. All my favorite stuff is in there. So like, when it's broken, all of this is broken. Everything that's attached to this is broken. That's right. That's really, that's so amazing. All my favorite stuff is in there. I'm just going to say real quick for anyone who's experiencing that who needs a place to reach out. Jenny mentioned the the crisis hotline. It is 800 273 8255. 800 2738255. And if you're sitting here thinking, how is that brilliant, amazing woman possibly

considering that the world might be better without her? That's crazy, you know, pun intended. That is also true for you. Yeah. For someone who is listening. Yes. And for someone who never has had any experience with suicide and doesn't understand what

we're talking about, one thing that you could do is just to make sure that whenever you're in a conversation about this or you hear about it, that you react with reverence and not judgment. This is something we can do. We can stop saying that suicide is so fish. We can stop doing, you know, I always think about this poem that Worsan Shire wrote about refugee her refugee experience when I think about suicide. And she said, she has this one line that says, you must understand no one leaves their home unless the water is safer than the land. And that's not really had that book right next to me. Really? Oh my gosh. And that's where I want to say every time someone says, it's so selfish, it's so whatever,

I can't imagine I want to say, you have to understand. No one leaves their home unless the water is safer than the land. So just be grateful you don't understand. Yes, yes. I have a lot of people who will come to me and will say, I don't understand. Yes, and we're friends. Yeah, I have a lot of people who will come to me and will say, I don't understand it. I don't understand depression. I don't understand anxiety, but my wife or my husband,

they suffer from it. And so they gave me your book to try to understand. And I have a better understanding, but like, what am I supposed to do to help them? And I think that's first of all such an amazing, I love the fact that the first thought is not, oh, this is going to be exhausting for me. It's, it's how, how do I help them? And, and I always just say, like, it's different for every single person. And really the best thing that you can do is to just ask them, what is it that you need for me? One other thing that I would say that, so I don't talk about my child and their experience

because they're 17 and I'm like, you know what, when you're 18, I mean, they talk about their own stuff, but I'm like, I'm like, I'm not going to publicly talk about any of their stuff until they're an adult and they're okay with it and they can make that decision fully. But I will say for parents, especially if you have hereditary issues, one of the greatest things that you can do is to ask your kid how they are. And that's not so dumb, like, you know, like, how are you? But like, to really be like, but really, how are you on a scale from one to ten,

zero being the worst, ten being the best? And that's really helpful because sometimes you'll have a kid and they'll be like, I'm at ten, and that's actually not great. Like, that might be, like, maybe there's some swings that are going on there. There may be there's an also the fact that they're able to like think about it that way and be like, where am I really? Where would it because you automatically want to say fine, you automatically want to either please your parents or get away from your parents. Usually both of their teenagers. And so that to me has been really helpful

is that question of how are you really once a day, one to 10, where are you right now? And it's okay, I'm not gonna judge you, nothing bad's gonna happen. I'm on your side, there's all sorts of, you know, different options. It's something that I wish I had bound earlier, so I always pass that on to parents.

Yeah, putting like a number on it, I think for me, especially with Glenin, who also suffers from depression and anxiety, I have had to tune into some of her triggers, like become hyper aware of some of her triggers. Actually, one of them happened last night. And the way I respond to knowing that something could be upsetting or could be creating an anxiety in her, the way in which I respond to that, the way in which I ask about that, almost is more important in some ways than me even asking. I mean, I think the number, putting a number on it is like a brilliant way because it kind of cuts out any kind of judgment. And so that I think is going to be that's going to be like really helpful I think for me and my marriage, you know, because I'll just say, how are you feeling? You know, and she's like,

I'm like, don't give me another job. She's like, she's doing like six like calculations or had like, why, hey, why did you fucking ask me that? Why do I not look like I'm feeling exactly? Exactly. How am I responding? So I think that that number, putting a number on it is really, really beautiful. Plus, fine can mean so many different things. Fine depends on your baseline. I mean, if you find can mean I'm getting through, I'm surviving, I'm going to show up tomorrow. But that's not necessarily fine. When I was reading your book, Jenny, it was one of the things that convinced me to get on anti-anxiety medicine because I read a part of your book that has always been my fine. That has always been, I just thought that's how life was.

And I didn't understand there could be a way that could be different, that that might actually be anxiety, that is that experience that could potentially get better for me as opposed to I would have said I was fine. Because that's how I've always a hundred percent been. I wanna read this one part that I identified so much with because to the accident helps anyone else. You were talking about anxiety and you said, sometimes my anxiety gets hard in ways that

you might not expect. If you struggle with anxiety, you probably know this feeling, the paralysis. I get stuck and suddenly it's been days since I replied to people on the internet and the pressure gets worse and I panic that people I haven't respond to are mad at me So I ignore their emails and I don't look at my DMs or my texts and I don't answer my phone or listen to voice mails because If I just wait until my mind gets better, maybe I can deal with this then But I don't because it doesn't and instead I look at those unopened emails for my friends and family and colleagues until I have Memorized the subject lines by heart.

And I think about how strange it is that they probably think I'm ignoring them. When in fact, I am utterly haunted by that. Yes. I always think I'm sorry to write you back, it's because I like you so much. Yes. The idea that you would spend an hour thinking about the email that would take five minutes to write back and not understand why you're such a deeply fucked up person that you have now spent six hours thinking about someone who must only assume

that you don't give a shit about them because why won't you text them back for the third time? That they're like, just text me back and let me know you're okay and you're like, and then you just shut them. Yeah. Yeah, then it gets even worse. Yes, my husband always, he'll walk in and he'll be like, touch it once.

That's the rule. You open an email, you immediately respond to it, you close it, touch it once. Never, and my, I had hit Mark is unread, that is my like defaults. I look at an email and I'm like, nope, hit Mark is unread. That is my like defaults. I look at an email and I'm like, nope, can't respond to that. Mark is like, and they're simple emails.

They're sit there, but I'm just like, nope, I don't know. I don't know how words work. Mm-hmm. And then I'll come out of it and all of a sudden, it's like, like I'm a superhero. Yes. Like, oh my God, is this how normal people are? I went, I went to CBS to pick up my medication

and didn't have to lay down afterward. Here, oh. Oh my God, it's just, it's so insane. Mm. Oh, that's so good. Okay, so we are so close to out of time, so we want to end with this. First of all, very quickly, I need to tell you

that the word, stat, I wear around my neck. Yay! So stat like the wind motherfucker. Oh my God. So what does stat mean? Okay. So stat, which Jenny has an entire chapter about in your book. Okay, so when you first start writing,

and you write a book, and then your editor's like, you first start writing and you write a book and then your editors like you should change everything and you're like you're right, just change everything, just change it all I suck at writing. And then when you get to a certain point where your editor asks you to change all these things and you can write this fancy word that is stat-st-e-t and Stet STET and what that means is, leave it as it stands. Leave it as it stands. Let it stand. Or as Jenny says, okay, this is what Jenny says. Stet is my favorite verb,

and it is the drier setting I live my life in. Stet equals, yes, it's fucked up, but I like it that way. Ha ha ha. Yeah. So thank you for that. Thank you so much. Thank you.

It's so wonderful. I'm like, sometimes you just, you, you have to learn how to write and what all the rules are just so that you can break all the rules. Yes. And it's so, it's so freeing and fantastic. And there are so many things that I have given myself permission to in my life like I don't own an ironing board or an iron because guess what, dryers exist. You know, dryer, that 100% works.

I don't always use a plate because if you eat over the sink, it's just a big fish. Oh my gosh. You can use your shirt. Oh my god. 100%. 100. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. You can use your shirt. Oh my gosh, 100%. 100, oh my gosh. Yes, yes.

Well, and see, I wear dresses because it's like a picnic table that you're wearing on time. Yeah. It is the bed. And people are always like, oh, it must be so comfortable to wear a dress. I'm like, are you kidding me?

I'm not wearing pants. Would you like to take your pants off right now? I don't understand why it, and all my dresses have pockets. So I'm just like, no, that's it. That's it. This is the key to my life is dresses that are big enough that I can eat all my food on. They have to be like super washer friendly. None of them have to be ironed and they have to be made out of whatever fabric that catford doesn't stick to. And that's yeah, that's how I see a hand wash or dry clean only.

I just think, well, I guess this is going to be disposable. This is going to be like, where at one time and then I throw it away. It's no absolutely no one's doing that. No, absolutely no one is doing this. It's kind of a protest. I'm like, oh, it's sure to shirt. It's like when I buy broccoli at the grocery store and I bring it home and Abby's like, should I just throw this directly in the trash or do you want to put it in the refrigerator

for two weeks and then throw it in the trash? Because it's like a hopeful version of myself goes to the grocery store and then a different version of myself lives in my home. See, that's why I go straight to the frozen broccoli. That's where, especially the one that you can like, make in its own pack, because then, guess what? It's its own bowl. You just open it up, and you put some,

you can either put butter in there, or, you know, what you could've been in there, Pimentochi. Oh! You don't even have to be dressed then! No. There's no reason for you have your dress on, so you can just have your frozen broccoli just na-fade with your Mr. Who.

So what we're saying is if you go to the grocery store and you find yourself in front of the fresh broccoli, you look at the fresh broccoli and you say, step, motherfucker, and then you go to the frozen section and take off your dress, take off your dress, get naked. Yes. They're going to make you go in front. Everybody's going to be like, no, that's okay. You can go ahead of me. You can go ahead because you're the naked person holding frozen broccoli. And that's with you.

You win. You win life. That's right. So what the next right thing is going to be, Jenny, is one of the things that we've been talking about, and says something about you, is just what you've just done. It's like life is so ridiculous, and being a human being is so ridiculously difficult. And there's just this one thing that helps, maybe two things. One is honesty, and the other one is absurdity. The way that you embrace absurdity as it's like an injection of humanity and joy into life that just demands.

It's like desire and absurdity are like the only things that can help us hold on to our humanity. So you have like entire chapters or or months on social media that it's all I read for a month, where you were like talking about mortifying things that you do, like when you're in the airport and the person says, have a great flight and you're like, you too. And then you're like, fuck, why again? I do that. That happens to me every time. And then everybody starts telling their mortifying stories and it's this common, what is it, Jenny? It's like, nothing bonds us.

Like, are humiliating. It's like the word human. And then it is. It is, there is something so incredibly honest about sharing the most mortifying thing that has ever happened to you. Not only because you are opening yourself up in such a vulnerable way, but because that thing that has been stuck in your head that you've been like, oh my God,

that horrible thing that happened to me in seventh grade that I lay at night at two o'clock in the morning just by stomach hurts when I think about it. Once you share it and people laugh and say, oh my God, you thought that was bad. Let me tell you what happened to me. And then all of a sudden, you're making friends, and you realize that those are the people

that you want to be friends with. You don't want to be friends with the people where you're like, oh, I have a car, and they go, oh, I have a nicer car. And you go, oh, I can't wait to be friends with you. You know, I don't know. Because you have whatever. Nobody's like, oh, I can't wait.

I can't wait. This person has like really great hair. And so I want to be best friends with them. No, you want to be friends with the people who make you laugh, who make you feel safe, who make you feel comfortable. And you know, what was really great is not only that, I mean, they were so utterly fantastic. Every single one that was shared that I was like,

I need to put this in the book because this really helped me. And I thought, I was like, I want to give credit to all of the people and I thought, I bet a lot of them will be like, I do not want this in a book that people are going to read. And so I reached out to, I want to say maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty. And every single person said, absolutely yes, you can use it. And they were like not only did that terrible thing turn into something that now is so funny, I have found friends out of this, who I'm now friends with because they reached out online.

And now this thing that before made my stomach hurt every time I thought about it. Now I'm like, Oh, that was part of a New York Times best-selling set. You know, you were an acceptance. And yeah, it's just it's amazing. And that's what people that's what people want. They want from each other. And that's what what we want from ourselves is that authenticness of like, Hi, I'm fucked up. Are you fucked up too? Can we be fucked up together? Can I lower my shield? Okay, let's hide behind both of our shields. And then

all of a sudden, there's like this whole group of people and we're all together and we're like, this is so good. It's beautiful. Yes, how, yes, because of you, we started telling our most humiliating stories. Just the three of us. We're gonna do a whole episode on our Jenny Larson inspired most humiliating stories. My favorite one in the book was the woman at the hairdresser who when they said, well, what do you want done today? And she said, I would like to have a wash, cut in a blow job. Yeah.

Yeah. Or the lady who asked for a blunt cut, but she missed up where the end was supposed to go and asked for a blunt something else. And a blunt. Hunt. A clip. Yeah. Cut.

Cut. Yeah. Oh my god. That's what she wanted to blunt. Blunt cut. And she asked for a blunt. Cut. Blunt.

The hairdresser. And you know what? The hairdresser is a lot of them. And I think it's because the hairdryer is going in the dark. It's the hairdryer. So just real quick, I'll tell you that my hairdresser, who I love her name's Ashley, and she's like this young, exciting whipper snapper, and she was doing my hair, and she was telling you about some big plans she had for the next year, and she said, I'm Glenn,

and I'm going to become an escort. And I was like, this is my moment where I might have some feelings because I'm like a 45 year old mom, but like this is a young woman who's sex positive and she's going to be an escort and you, Glenn and Doyle, are going to celebrate this in the moment. And so I said something like, oh, okay, like, where are you going to get your clients? There's something. And she said, well, I'm just going to keep the same ones. And I was like, holy shit. Right. That's a weird crossover. Right. I was like, okay. So we have excited for you. Like, let me know how I can support you, whatever. So later, much

later in the day, we text back and forth and I realize what she said, Jenny is I'm gonna be an S-Corp. An S-Corp. CRP. Which is a business. Which is a frickin business term. She's like, get it, gonna be a different name for her business or something.

No, so of course you're gonna have the same clients, but she wasn't gonna have sex with them. Anyway. I trust her. Okay, she was. Jenny, you are a revolution. You are a leader for all of us who just want to be close with each other in a real way.

Like you wanna be human together. You have this part of your book where you're talking about this art called Keen Suge, and you say it's a Japanese art of fixing broken things with lacquer dusted with powder gold to treat the repair as part of the history rather than disguising the breakage. The brokenness becomes part of the story and beauty of the piece. And Jenny, just that is you. You just- Yes. Nothing is disguised. All of it is shown.

All of it is golden. You are human, Keatsuki, and we are so grateful for you. Thank you for helping us do hard things. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. And this was fantastic. And this was a hard thing that was very worthwhile. So thank you for having me on. I cannot tell you how much I actually needed this today. So thank you.

And for the next right thing, I think everybody should just go out and share their most humiliating stories. Yeah, do it. In honor of Jenny's belief that we also believe that one of the things we can do to draw closer to each other is share our mortifying stories. Please call and share your embarrassing mortifying stories with us. We're just so excited to hear these messages. We'll probably get together and listen to them during a slumber party,

but also we'll probably play some of them during our mortifying moments episode, which is forthcoming. Or you can email. Yes. If you prefer that, if you're not into the voice messaging, the email is wcdhtpod at gmail.com. So it's the first letters of we can do hard things. Pod at gmail.com.

WCDhtpod at gmail.com.CD HT POD at gmail.com or the phone number is 747 2 0 0 5 3 0 7 once again that is 747 2 0 0 5 3 0 7 tell us the story or email please tell us your stories we cannot wait. And when life gets hard, don't forget, loves. You can do hard things. Talk soon. Bye. We can do hard things, is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it.

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